Soldier of God

More of their men fell from the wall dead. Over the noise, Andy heard a radio call from the snipers in the tower explaining there were still several blind spots on the cliff. Either the enemy figured out where those blind spots were, or the snipers had done all they could to help. He yelled up at the wall, garnering the attention of one of the soldiers, and relayed the information.

After that, his attention was on the wounded man. Andy, as careful as he could, got the soldier down the stairs. Blood soaked his shirt where he got shot, and Andy — not being too versed in first aid — guessed the bleeding needed to be stopped somehow. His best idea was to rip off a large chunk of fabric from his own sleeve. It was after that he realized he probably needed to see what the wound looked like. For all he knew, it might have looked worse than it really was. He got the soldier’s shirt off and examined his shoulder. I have no idea if this is bad or not, he realized as he stared blankly. He quickly wrapped his torn sleeve around the shoulder.

“Is there somewhere here I can take you? Somewhere out of the way until medics show up?”

The soldier pointed across the courtyard. “You could try over there, in that room.”

Lifting the soldier up, Andy nodded. “Can you walk?” He didn’t even think about it when he dragged the man off the wall.

“Yeah, but I think I rolled my ankle when I stumbled down.”

Andy let the man lean on him. The man hopped across the courtyard, keeping his foot off the ground.

“Thanks. Heh, I guess you’re not so bad.”

“Good to know.”

The soldier laughed. “My dad was a sarcastic prick, too. Name’s Johnson.”

Still semi-carrying him, Andy opened the door leading inside. He helped Johnson sit down against the wall.

“Why Crusader?”

Andy shrugged. “I don’t know. Spartan just saw a, uh... something that looked like the Templar Cross on my keychain.”

“What’s a Templar Cross?”

“It’s... it’s like this old symbol for the Knights Templar. The Crusaders, you know?” He paused for a moment. “On second thought, I guess you wouldn’t.”

Rubbing his ankle, Johnson shook his head. “Crusader, Spartan, Viking. What the hell even are those things?”

“Old warriors. From our world. You all have names similar to the ones we have back home. I guess we just wanted to show where we came from or something.”

They sat in the room in silence, listening to the sounds of war outside. Eventually, Johnson asked, “Who were the Knights Templar?”

Andy tried to collect his thoughts. He only had the Templar Cross because it was merchandise from Metatron’s website. It wasn’t even quite what the cross looked like, it was the stylized version from their “Soldiers of the Righteous War” album. His knowledge about the Templars came from their songs, and he wasn’t even sure how accurate those were. “They were like these knights of the church, out reclaiming the Holy Land.”

A bit of recognition flickered in Johnson’s eyes. “The Holy Land?”

Andy nodded. “Yeah, Isra—” He stopped himself. “Sorry, Spartan told me not to say things like the names of our countries. From what I know, they believed it their mission to reclaim the country that God supposedly gave his people. They were fighting the armies of another religion for it.” It was now dawning on him he probably never should have mentioned the Templars, maybe keep the whole concept to himself. However, it was a bit too late now with intrigue flickering in Johnson’s eyes.

Johnson smiled. “So, you guys have a God, too, huh?”

“Yeah, we do.”

“So what’s this God stand for, huh? What did these Templars fight for? Outside the Holy Land.”

“I guess they were fighting for God. He’s supposed to be good and righteous or whatever. They say the Templars saw God’s people being mistreated and sort of took issue with that.”

“You don’t know a whole lot about them, do you?”

Andy hung his head.

“Whatever the case, I guess these Templar guys don’t sound too bad.” Johnson’s eyes glazed over a bit . Andy could only guess the poor man was reliving all the horrors he’d endured up to that point. “I can get behind that.”

“How long have you been here? Been a soldier, I mean.”

Johnson gave a pained smile. “Longer than I wanted.” His eyes drifted up. “I just wanted to see what’s out there. Maybe find out why the moon glows red. I never wanted to be a soldier.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a metal charm. Andy took it. It depicted a man hanging from a tree with his wrists bound above his head. Barbed brambles covered the man’s face in the shape of an X, wrapping around the trunk of the tree. The tree itself was leafless, and Andy wasn’t sure if it was dead or just a tree in winter. His mind went back to those depictions he’d seen from cathedrals of Jesus nailed to the cross with the crown of thorns. Part of him found it funny. What were the odds? He handed it back to Johnson.

“Keep it,” Johnson said. “If you’re supposed to be God’s soldier, you might as well, right?”

Andy slowly slipped it in his own pocket. He was uncertain about taking it, and he was even more uncertain about the sentiment. Crusader was just some dumb code name another man gave him, a simple means to tell others he didn’t belong here. Now he was supposed to actually be a Crusader? Still, he didn’t want to be rude. Maybe later he could ask someone about this tree-bound man.

“Go out there, see if there are any others who need to get to safety.”

Andy looked out the window. There were more wounded, and more dead. He called for medics on the radio then ran back outside.